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Makeup Vanity


Coop

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My wife’s 12 yo niece is into makeup and wants an application station, ie, makeup vanity. She sent me a pic and followed with a puppy eyed FaceTime call wanting to know if it was possible. She also would like it painted which is a double edge sword. Cheaper wood allowed but I hate painting a project. I bought poplar and 1/2” BB ply today. The drawer cabinet on the right will extend down to about 3” above the floor and have four legs/stiles that I will taper starting at the bottom of the rails at the 3” mark. The area above the lap will have a thin drawer. The left front and back legs, I would like taper, starting at the bottom of this drawer. All legs will start at 1 1/2” and taper to 1”. Will the different taper pattern from the left legs to the right ones look strange? I guess I could lay it out on mdf to scale to see. The panel on the left of this table will be replaced with a bottom stretcher and an apron at the top.

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8 hours ago, Coop said:

She does and will be over this afternoon to give me a hand! 

Well I guess cheerleading camp this weekend took preference.?

3 hours ago, Tmize said:

I would just do the small 3” taper on all the legs. You could get away a slightly narrower legs on the left side than around the drawer  compartment 

 

8 hours ago, Kev said:

To answer your question, I think you'll need a little mock up to really answer your question.  

I didn’t have a large enough piece of mdf to draw it to full size so I cut two extra legs to do a full taper on one and only the last 3” on the other. One of the reasons for thinking of the full taper was to give it a thinner look. 

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Without much forethought, I started building this thing to the original dimensions and after getting into it past knee deep, I find that the space allowed for drawers is only 6.5” wide, useless. I found the spec sheets on the pic and the sides/dividers  are 1/2” manufactured something or another. To give her decent size drawers, I will have to make it wider. However, the top is already glued up. To add width, I guess the only answer is to add breadboard ends? A weekend project just turned into overtime. 

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10 minutes ago, Coop said:

Without much forethought, I started building this thing to the original dimensions and after getting into it past knee deep, I find that the space allowed for drawers is only 6.5” wide, useless. I found the spec sheets on the pic and the sides/dividers  are 1/2” manufactured something or another. To give her decent size drawers, I will have to make it wider. However, the top is already glued up. To add width, I guess the only answer is to add breadboard ends? A weekend project just turned into overtime. 

Short of redoing the top, the BB ends will buy you a few extra inches.

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17 hours ago, Coop said:

I find that the space allowed for drawers is only 6.5” wide, useless.

Well if it is really just going to be a makeup vanity, 3 or 4 drawers 6.5 inches wide will hold quite a bit of makeup.

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"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not;  remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." - Epicurus

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The width got approved for 42” so I will do bb ends. That should allow me to Domino the side aprons to the bb ends as the grain will run the same way, as long as the Domino tenons don’t go thru the tenons from the table top? Stronger than figure 8’s? 

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36 minutes ago, Tmize said:

Figure 8’s or a cleat and screws is plenty strong enough for a make up vanity. I don’t think I would domino it even if you don’t glue it. Would make repairs down the road more difficult  

 

Very true and a heck of a lot easier! 

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I built Marc’s blanket chest a few years back and it had bb ends. I guess I can still go back and watch the videos to refresh myself, but I thought I would ask it here to benefit others in the future.  The top currently is 37” long and I want to get to 42”, difference of 5” or 2.5” on each end. 

1) How deep should the mortises be? 

2) As I recall, the tenons are 1/3 the thickness of the top and they are haunched. For a 22” deep, front to back, I plan on three ea. 5” wide tenons spaced equally. 

3) On Marc’s blanket chest build, the bb ends we’re proud on the ends to allow for movement and also proud on the thickness. Any reason the bb ends should be thicker than the top itself? 

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1)If it was me I would 1.5” deep tenon. 
The m&t rules get a little grey when doing bb ends you want more meat in the tenons to help with cupping of the top. 

2)1/3 the thickness is fine. Haunched is fine I normally do concealed tenons but I really don’t think it matter it’s easier for me than haunched. Now with wood movement a 5” wide tenon is to big it would risk cracking the top. How about 5- 3” wide tenons instead. 
 

3) The more thickness you have around the bb ends the stronger it will be.  I haven’t seen the video but I believe his blanket chest was G&G. That style has a lot of offset design features in them that maybe why he choose to have a thicker end on it. If the top is 1” or thinner I don’t think you will have an issue using the same size end cap. 

33 minutes ago, Coop said:

I built Marc’s blanket chest a few years back and it had bb ends. I guess I can still go back and watch the videos to refresh myself, but I thought I would ask it here to benefit others in the future.  The top currently is 37” long and I want to get to 42”, difference of 5” or 2.5” on each end. 

1) How deep should the mortises be? 

2) As I recall, the tenons are 1/3 the thickness of the top and they are haunched. For a 22” deep, front to back, I plan on three ea. 5” wide tenons spaced equally. 

3) On Marc’s blanket chest build, the bb ends we’re proud on the ends to allow for movement and also proud on the thickness. Any reason the bb ends should be thicker than the top itself? 

 

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Anyone ever cut the leg tapers on the wrong side of the legs? And I had them marked well. Just couldn’t read my own writing.

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To recover and luckily this thing will be painted, I glued blocks to the two bad cuts.

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They didn’t come out half bad considering I took Woodworking classes from MacGyver.

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I watched Marc’s blanket chest video today to remember how we did the bb ends. He cut a 1/2” groove in the bb end with a 1/2” tenon on the top and secured them with recessed screws from the end edge, covered by square plugs. Since I am only adding 2 1/2” to each end, I think that should be strong enough. 

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